PRESENT PROJECTS
The encouragement of true scientific research is a new development in the operating branches of the mining industry. Research on the geology of ore deposits and research on ore beneficiation have long since proved themselves and been accepted but, research on actual mining operations has received very little interest from the industry generally. Miners have long compared their calling to the arts rather than to the sciences, and with much justification, because safety and success in mining has been and still is, based largely on experience and intuition rather than quantitative knowledge. However, the arts in general are not marked by their rapid progress and development, here as the recent phenomenal advances in science and technology are the bywords of the day. If we want our industry to advance with the rest of American technology, it is time we stopped priding ourselves on being artisans and started applying the many advanced techniques of science and the other industries to the solution of our mining problems. Too many important plans and decisions in mining must still be made on assumptions which are based on experience alone, because we do not posses as sufficient stock of fundamental knowledge about the things we seek to control. This is especially true in the field of rock mechanics, the subject of this Symposium. There is a quotation by Lord Kelvin which says:
"When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it , when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science whatever the matter may be."
The motto of one testing machine manufacturers is: "One test is worth a thousand expert opinions."In a recent paper on the application of scientific measurements to strata control*, Prof. Edward L. J. Potts, of the School of Mines at Durham, England, has said: "Too much has been written on the theory of strata pressures and movement, and too little has been done to measure actual values from which empirical reasoning can be carried out. It is hoped that the several examples which follow will indicate how much could be done to investigate our strata control problems using technological skill and a scientific approach."
The role of a research department in mining should be to develop a quantitative knowledge of the fundamentals of the mining operations with which to supplement the experience of the operating departments, and also to delve into the areas beyond the realm of experience in order to develop entirely new principles and methods of operation. To fulfill this role efficiently, a research department must be free of the demands of production and independent of the operating departments. The St. Joseph Lead Company has done considerable pioneering in the development of new machines, equipment, and methods but it was not until July 1955, that an entirely separate department was established for mining research.
